


Bad Timing

by kiri_bronach



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Physical Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 16:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20696825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiri_bronach/pseuds/kiri_bronach
Summary: Five time-jumps the Hargreeves back to a time after he'd left. Reginald is not happy with him for leaving.





	Bad Timing

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [kiri_bronach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiri_bronach/pseuds/kiri_bronach) in the [iibb2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/iibb2019) collection. 

> So, this is 100% not the story I was intending to post. But that one wasn't going to make it to word count on time or be complete when it got there, and this one was already started and much closer to being done, so yeah. Oops.

Five doesn’t remember much after transporting himself and his siblings back in time. One minute, he’s straining his powers in a painful last ditch attempt at saving them while the world literally crumbles in the background. The next, he’s waking up sore all over in his bed at the mansion. Ben is staring down at him, teenaged and presumably alive again, based on his visibility. And he’s going to stay that way this time, if Five has anything to say about it. Which he will. Once he gets his strength back. For now, he has more pressing matters.

“You’d better not have been watching me sleep.”

“Nope. Just got here. I brought you something to eat.” 

Ben reaches into his pockets and pulls out a biscuit and a handful of baby carrots. He hands them to Five and fills him in on when they are while his brother eats. (The food does nothing for his hunger, but he’s glad for it anyway.) It’s 2003, about two months after Five disappeared in the original timeline. They’ve been back for a day, which Five slept through.

“How’s Vanya?” Five asks and Ben shrugs.

“About the same as you. Unconscious yesterday, tired today. She doesn’t seem too angry, anymore, though.”

“That doesn't mean she's not. I don’t seem angry when I am.” Ben laughs softly.

“Sure you don’t.”

“I need to talk to her.” Five tries to sit up. He makes it as far as getting his elbow beneath him before his arm wobbles and he falls back onto the bed.

“You need to rest,” Ben counters and Five scowls at him.

“I need to make sure everyone knows the plan. I need to - ”

“You need to rest.”

“But the plan.”

“We already know the plan. We teach Vanya about her power and make her feel included. We don’t let Mom or Dad find out what’s going on. It’s all right Five. Just because a plan is good doesn’t mean it can’t be simple.” Five scowls. The plan isn’t actually all that simple. Sure, the steps are, but there’s a lot involved in carrying them out. Forty-plus years of solitude and eight days of being the most competent person working against the apocalypse have taught him he can only rely on himself. His instincts are yelling at him that his siblings need him. His aching body is yelling at him that he needs rest and it is winning. 

“Keep me informed, ‘k?” he mumbles, already half way back to sleep. They survived the first day without him. Besides, he’ll be of more use once he’s stronger again.

“Of course,” Ben agrees and slips out of the room as quietly as he entered.

Five gets his rest, barely moving for the next few days. His siblings come to see him when they can, sometimes bringing food and other times just making sure he’s still alive. He’s not good company, though, too tired to make real conversation, and they never stay for longer than it takes to update him on their progress. 

Gradually, the pain starts to fade. He starts to feel more awake. And, finally, on what he’s pretty sure is the fourth day since they’ve been back (or maybe it’s the fourth day since he woke up?), his restlessness comes back. It’s evening and he finally feels energized enough to go somewhere other than the bathroom and he has never been so happy to want to move.

He changes partly into his uniform for dinner. It’s late, so he opts to leave behind vest and tie and shoes, but the rest of it is necessary. It wouldn't do to not be presentable in front of his father. The thought makes him pause. How is he going to explain his sudden reappearance? 

He'll figure something out.

Afraid of his powers not working, Five chooses to walk downstairs. His legs are shaky at first and he moves stiffly, but he makes it. To his relief, Reginald isn't at the table when he gets there - taking an important phone call, Diego informs him once the siblings have acted sufficiently shocked at his presence. Grace is overjoyed to see him and happily gives him a plate of food and then another, not even commenting when he eats faster than is polite.

It’s almost bedtime, so Grace lets them go shortly after even though Reginald isn't there to dismiss them and Five thinks how lucky he is. He's had a decent meal for the first time in over a week and it looks like he's going to get to slip off to his room and rest for another day or two. The feeling doesn't last long.

Reginald comes back from his phone call. The others see him first, drawing back into the dining room doorway. Five keeps going, moving eyes-down with single minded determination towards the stairs. He hears someone clear their throat and stops. When he looks up, he finds himself directly in front of his father. The man's face looks angry and Five’s heartbeat picks up because he remembers this, oh god, he  _ remembers this. _ He'd blocked off most of his bad childhood memories when the future gave him so much worse to worry about. The ease with which finding food in the apocalypse approached impossibility. The panic of trying to save the world armed only with a few days and no idea how it started. The uncomfortable way the Handler  _ looked  _ at him when he went back to the Commission in thirteen year old form. Memories of a man he thought he'd never see again were insignificant compared to the very real threats he had faced. But now the man is once again more than a memory, and so is the fear he brings.

“Number Five, how nice of you to finally return to us.” Reginald’s voice is cold and flatly sarcastic, his words carefully chosen to imply Five’s arrogance. There is no relief in the statement. 

“Nice try,” Five retorts. “That was almost believable.” The slap is not a surprise, but it still hurts. It stings and in his already weakened state the force of it almost knocks him over.

He’s back in his room in an instinctive flash of blue. It’s a habit he picked up at the Commission, jumping out of the way of anyone who was upset with him. The worst the Handler ever did in retaliation was to call him cowardly or immature. As long as he did his job well, she didn’t much care what else he did. His father, on the other hand, does care.

Reginald bursts through the door moments later and pulls Five off the bed. “I expected better from you, Number Five,” he scolds as he drags Five towards his study. Five knows another slap is coming, it’s just a matter of when. “I thought I taught you not to teleport out of our conversations.” There it is. The pain falls on his already stinging cheek and it’s only his father’s bruising grip that stops him stumbling into the wall. 

In the office, Reginald shoves him into a chair. Five is back on his feet in seconds, despite the exhaustion that’s starting to creep back in. He won’t sit while Reginald stands, won’t put himself in a weaker-looking position. He knows he is only pretending to be a frightened teen, but it feels less and less like an act by the second. 

“I want you to tell me what happened.”

“What?” Five doesn’t know if his father realizes that his confusion is genuine, but either way it earns him another smack. The cane to his shoulder blade, this time.

“The two months that you’ve been gone,” Reginald clarifies. “What happened?” Two months. Five scoffs at his father’s ignorance and it is the wrong answer. A third slap cracks on the same cheek and Five tastes blood. “Don’t make me ask again,” Reginald warns and Five quickly concocts a lie that is partly truth.

“I went out to see if I could time travel. I can. Quite well, by the way.” The cane connects with his other shoulder blade, knocking him forward. He grabs the chair for stability and tries to angle his back away from his father. “It was only supposed to be a few trips, but when I tried to come back I messed up the calculations and ended up here today instead of that day.”

“Then it sounds like maybe you aren’t as good at time travelling as you think you are.” 

Five swallows his pride, swallows all the years he’s spent perfecting his ability, and answers like he would have if his cover story was true. “Maybe not, but I could be if you just let me practice.” 

“Don’t you see, Number Five, that this is exactly why you cannot do that? You disappeared without a trace or a way for us to find you.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Five interrupts. “I could do that spatially if I wanted to. I think you don’t want me to time travel because it would make it harder for you to control me.” Evidently, the implication that he is home because he wants to be there is not enough to win over his father.

Reginald grabs his arm again and twists him around. “I have not missed your attitude, Number Five!” he growls and brings his cane down hard on Five’s back.  _ I haven’t missed yours, either, _ Five wants to say. Would say if he could get the words out. But he can’t speak because Reginald keeps hitting him and it’s all he can do to breathe through the pain without crying out. His hands squeeze around the chair’s armrest until he can feel the imprints of its carvings in his palms, but he can’t let go because if he does he’ll crumple to a heap on the floor. The floor is a dangerous place to be. It takes away all of his already limited ability to fight back and gives Reginald easier access to his weaker spots. He’ll take the sharp sting of metal on his back and rear any day over a kick in the face. He’ll keep himself standing even as the pain blooms across his thighs because there are much more fragile things in his gut than in his legs. 

“I thought I taught you to be responsible.”  _ Isn’t learning the full extent of our powers being responsible?  _ Five tries to ask, but a particularly hard strike comes down on his lower back just as he opens his mouth and all that comes out is a yelp. 

“The Umbrella Academy can’t do its job if one of its members is missing. What if someone had died because you weren’t here?” The question is punctuated with a thwack near Five’s knee and this time he lets himself fall. He knows Reginald is talking about the civilians they help on their missions. He also knows that Ben dies young in the original timeline, sometime after he leaves. He lands on his knees with an impact that makes him scream and doesn’t bother trying to get back up. The thought has always been there, in the back of his mind, that if he’d stayed he could have saved Ben. Hearing his father validate this secret fear, even unwittingly, brings it crashing to the forefront. The kneeling position puts Five’s neck in the cane’s range of motion and brings him one step closer to collapsing completely. He doesn’t care as much as he should. In fact, Five thinks that maybe he deserves it. Maybe he deserves the strike to his shoulder that comes scarily close to his head. Maybe he deserves the whole ordeal for not being a better brother, a better hero.

He doesn’t know how many times his father’s struck him when he finally stops. Not that it matters - this is the kind of beating you measure in minutes. He doesn’t know how long it lasted either. All he knows is pain. The burn of scratched skin. The throb of forming bruises. The undercurrent of ache left over from the almost-apocalypse. The tightness in his throat from crying. “Get up,” his father demands and Five physically cannot. “Useless lump,” Reginald mutters and Five cringes, expecting the cane to accompany the insult. 

It doesn’t. Instead, Reginald grabs his arm and is once again pulling him around, prying his hands from the chair that has been his lifeline the past however long it's been, dragging him back to his room. The mansion is dark and silent. It must be after curfew.  _ Good,  _ Five thinks. He doesn’t want his siblings to see him like this. He doesn’t want them to see the way his feet scrabble uselessly on the floor or the tear tracks that run down his face, mingling with blood on one side. He doesn’t want them to see him weak.

His father throws him onto the ground in his room. He lands on his injured butt with a cry that is barely more than a whimper. Reginald walks away with only a “don’t think this gets you out of training tomorrow” for a goodnight. Five rolls onto his side, curls into a ball, and sobs. 

It feels like he lays there forever, but eventually he pushes himself back up to his knees and then his feet. He can’t stand without furniture or a wall to steady himself and he almost falls several times on the slow, torturous trip to the bathroom, but even in the unwatching darkness he has too much dignity to crawl. He takes a minute to rest, slumped against the sink counter. 

He’s unusually conscious of how much he needs to twist and turn to take his blazer off and when he starts to peel off his shirt it sticks in a way that doesn’t feel like sweat. His suspicions are confirmed when he sees the red blotches staining the back of the shirt.  _ Fuck. _

He grabs a washcloth and set of pajamas from the bathroom closet. Shaky hands run the washcloth under warm water and bring it to the cut on his lip. It too comes away bloodstained and he curses his father for buying them white towels. His face taken care of the best he can manage, Five turns his attention to his back. There’s no hand mirror in this bathroom, so he uses his shirt as a map to find the bleeding spots. Reaching around to his back like this is hard enough at the best of times, let alone now. He has to grit his teeth to keep himself silent. He can feel the movements tugging on the edges of his wounds and it really wouldn’t be a surprise if his attempts at cleaning them made things worse. Still, it makes him feel better to pretend he’s doing something that will help.

Putting on the pajama shirt hurts the same as taking the blazer off, but at least his pants are easier to change. The blood won’t wash out of the washcloth so he just wads it up with his clothes and sticks the whole bundle in the laundry hamper. He makes the trip back to his room in a daze. The motions are familiar but the circumstances are not. He’s used to patching up a bleeding wound. He’s used to comforting himself after being hit by his father. He is not used to doing both at once. 

If life were simpler, it would be the kind of pain that knocks him unconscious. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of pain that keeps him awake. He lays on his side and can think of nothing but how much he  _ hurts _ . The position doesn’t help, either. His stomach feels vulnerable but if tries to curl up it pulls on his injuries. His arm tingles where he’s squishing it. His knees are stiff from not moving, but he can’t flip over or he’ll be putting pressure on the bruised side of his face. He’s about to try rolling onto his stomach when he feels someone sit down on the empty side of his bed.

For a terrifying moment, he thinks it’s Reginald come back to hurt him some more. But then the presence lays down and makes itself comfortable next to him and he realizes that it’s one of siblings. “So… What happened with Dad?” the presence asks and it’s only because of the voice that Five recognizes it as Klaus. Usually, when Klaus wants to share a bed, he flounces and flops to announce himself, and his calmness now is welcome but unnerving.

“He yelled, wanted to know what happened after I went away, yelled some more.” Five leaves out the rest of it. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he’s not sure what to say anyway.  _ He hit me _ is the understatement of all eternity.  _ He beat me _ is tinged with an unnameable emotion that Five does not want in his words. (Never mind that, whatever it is, it’s what he’s feeling. That is  _ not  _ the point.)

Klaus doesn’t buy it. “You know,” he says, “whenever Dad kept me away that long it either meant I was in the mausoleum,” a pause, “or it meant I was getting the shit kicked out of me.” Five’s breath catches. He knows Klaus has a certain lack of filter, but he can’t imagine actually talking about  _ this _ . Especially not in the casual way Klaus is now.

He’s saved from having to answer by the sound of footsteps in the hall. “Is it sleepover night?” Diego’s voice asks from his doorway. Klaus must not have shut the door and, judging by the noise levels, most if not all of their siblings have followed him over.

“No,” Five grumbles. “There is no sleepover and none of you are invited. Not even Klaus. Especially not Klaus.”

“Hey!” the brother in question squawks indignantly. It’s nothing against him, really. It’s just that, well, at the moment Klaus is the most emotionally open of the family and Five isn’t sure he wants to know what kinds of things Klaus and his openness might trick him into talking about while he’s not in a state to properly fend off the conversation. 

“You sure, Five?” Allison asks and Five doesn't know if he hopes he isn’t hearing a  _ we’re worried about you _ under the question or if he hopes he is. He nods, then remembers it’s dark, and is about to answer out loud when Vanya’s soft voice speaks up.

“Hey, guys, is someone bleeding?” There’s scuffling in the hall. Then his door clicks shut and the light turns on. Five hurries to pull the covers over his head before anyone sees his face. He's too slow. Ben lunges forward to pull them back and there’s a collective gasp as the others take in the sight. Half of his face is swollen and bruised, eye barely open and blood crusting around a cut on his lip.

“That doesn’t look like he just yelled at you,” Klaus says cautiously. Five lets out a dramatic sigh.

“Ok, fine. He slapped me a couple more times than you saw. Happy now?” Vanya holds up the bloody washcloth and she and Diego study it, looking back and forth between the red stains and his puffy face.

“This looks like a lot of blood for that split lip,” Diego says. ‘Sleepover night’ is starting to feel less like an annoyance and more like a confrontation.

“Here’s an idea,” Five snaps. “Maybe you should stick to playing detective in your own room - in the day time - and let. Me. Sleep.”

“He has a point,” Klaus argues back. Five groans.

“I told you to leave me alone. Why are you doing this?”

It’s Vanya who answers, despite her timidness. “Because you would do the same for any of us. Hell, you  _ are  _ doing the same for me right now. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, in the past? So you can... help me? Or - or whatever?” She finishes awkwardly, her voice starting to shake. But they are in the past to help her, so he has to admit that she’s right about that at least. The rest of it though? Can she really say that ‘he’d do the same for any of them’ when he’d originally abandoned them and let Ben die?

There are suddenly tears in Ben's eyes and oh, fuck, he said that out loud, didn’t he? “Ben, I’m sorry…” he tries, but his brother stops him.

“No. It’s not - it wasn’t your fault.”

“But if I’d been here…”

“If you’d been here, Vanya would have caused the apocalypse without any of us knowing it was going to happen and we’d  _ all _ be dead  _ now _ .” This time it’s Luther who interrupts him and Vanya flinches at his bluntness. Allison glares at Luther, who shrugs as if to say  _ it’s true, isn’t it? _ Five is going to have to have a talk with Luther later about  _ you don’t say those kinds of things _ , but as terrible as they are, he wants to believe the words. He wants to believe that his advance notice of the apocalypse was essential to stopping it. He wants to believe that his suffering meant something.

He can’t believe it because it’s too conceited and too easy. He doesn’t get to be so special only he could save the world. He doesn’t get to have such a clear get-away from all the guilt.

Diego grabs the washcloth from Vanya and turns to face the group, waving it in their faces. “Is anyone else thinking that that isn't the point right now?” Five pulls his blanket back over his head. Maybe if he just pretends his siblings aren't here they'll get the hint and leave. “Right now, Ben’s alive and the world isn’t scheduled to end for another sixteen years. Death and the apocalypse are, quite literally, a problem for future us,” Diego continues. “Shouldn't we be more concerned with  _ this _ right now?” Five can picture him shaking the washcloth again to illustrate the point. He doesn't think he likes having his blood used in this way, but there are murmurs of agreement from his siblings and if that's what they need to stop arguing he'll take what he can get.

Allison sits down on the edge of his bed. He can tell that it's her because she's talking ("Seriously, Five, where are you bleeding?") and he can hear her voice getting closer.

"My lip," he insists from under the blanket. "Now please shut up."  _ Shut up _ not  _ go away _ because maybe that's what he really wants. He can feel the mattress dipping under the added weight where Klaus is laying and where Allison is sitting and maybe he cherishes this reminder that he is no longer alone. Maybe the soft sound of six other people breathing could lull him to sleep if only pain and annoyance and defensiveness weren't rushing through his mind at too many miles per second. Maybe… 

But no. “Five?” Luther prods. “Come on, we know you’re not sleeping.” His siblings  _ were  _ there. They knew there was something wrong and they weren’t hiding away in their rooms pretending there wasn’t, the way they had so often as children. It had almost started to feel like things had changed. But something in Luther’s tone sounds too sharp, too accusing, and suddenly things don’t seem so different. Suddenly, he’s remembering all the moments from his childhood that should have taught him better than to hope for comfort. 

The times they’d argued over who had it worst. The time Reginald had beaten him on the legs in a training session and Luther had mocked him for limping. The way the punishments would snowball, with consequences for not recovering quickly enough, for not being able to perform well enough in pain. The way none of them had ever questioned it, but had even used it, springboarding off each others’ suffering to show how they were not as incapacitated. The offense his concern for their wellbeing had caused his siblings way back when, before he’d learned to feign indifference. Pain was weakness. He should have remembered that. 

He couldn’t trust anyone with his pain, couldn’t do anything with it but curl up around it and wait for it to go away. He didn’t think he could cry any more that night, but tears spring to his eyes because his siblings have to leave. Because no matter what he does, his life can’t seem to go right. So many years he’d been alone, when it could have been the death of him. So many years with the Commission, when he might as well have been alone, just trying to get back to his family. And now that he was with them again, they were right back where they’d started. Right back where it would be safer to be alone.

Five kicks out desperately, trying to knock Klaus and Allison off the bed. His foot connects limply with Klaus’s leg, but he’s too tired for there to really be any force behind it. All he succeeds in doing is nearly flipping himself over. He rolls back quickly, but not before his bruises hit the bed and he can’t hold back a whimper.

“All right, that’s it. We’re dealing with this,” Klaus insists. He sits up and he pulls Five out from under the blanket, dragging Five practically into his lap. There’s a collective gasp when his back becomes visible and Five can only assume he’s bled through his shirt again.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asks Ben.

“Well that explains the blood,” Diego says matter of factly.

“Shit,” says Luther. Five decides that last statement would be the easiest to deal with.

“It’s not usually this bad,” he says, and winces at how it comes out. He means to say  _ don’t worry about me _ . He means to say  _ I forgive you for not being there for me before _ . He means to say  _ look on the bright side _ . It sounds like he’s defending his father. 

“I’ll get the first aid kit,” Diego offers quickly, trying to diffuse the tension before anyone can comment on how Five’s words went wrong. He scurries out the door and in his absence the others draw closer to the bed. 

“I’m so sorry Five,” Vanya whispers, grabbing his hand. “If it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened.” Five squeezes her hand back.

“No. If anything it was my fault. I knew the most about the apocalypse, I should have been able to stop it. I know the most about time travel, I should have brought us to a better date.” “And I should have been a better sister to you, Vanya, and then maybe Five wouldn’t have had to time travel us all,” Allison adds.

“We all should have done something different,” Luther agrees. “There’s not just one of us to blame.” Which is pretty impressive coming from Luther, who Five would have expected to pin all the blame on Vanya. But Klaus snorts, a sarcastic, almost angry sound that Five can feel where his head lays on Klaus’s chest.

“Personally, I blame Reginald.” Luther frowns silently at that and Diego isn’t there, but there’s a chorus of “yeah”s and nods from the rest of them and Five thinks it’s the most unanimous they’ve ever been. “I mean, first he tells us we need to stop the apocalypse, and then he’s massively unhelpful in getting us to do that, and then we find out that all along the solution was to undo something he did in the first place. And then when we finally sort of almost succeed, he flips the fuck out and beats up on our little Number Five.”

“I’m not little,” Five protests, choosing to focus on the jab rather than the way verbal acknowledgements of his pain make him want to squirm right out of his skin.

“I mean, to be fair, he doesn’t know we’re from the future.”

“Oh, how  _ dare  _ you! You can’t take his side anymore! Not after this.”

“I’m  _ not  _ taking his side! I’m  _ just saying…” _

Luckily, Diego slips back into the room before Luther and Klaus can get any angrier or any louder. “Jesus, guys. I leave you alone for two minutes.” Diego shakes his head and sets the first aid kit and a fresh pajama shirt down on the bed. “Let us help you, Five?” he asks, his voice softened in a way that Five almost doesn’t want to find as patronizing as he does.

“Sure. Then maybe there’ll be a point to you being in here.”

Klaus and Diego help Five out of his shirt and he tries not to make a sound. They’re doing their best, he knows, but it still  _ hurts _ . Allison strokes his hair and though the feeling is soothing it can’t help the pain. Off to the side, someone’s rummaging through the kit. 

He does let out a sound when an antiseptic wipe touches his back, yelping at the cold of it and the way it stings his torn skin. "Shhhh, it's ok," Allison says and he wants to snap at her that he's not her kid and that she shouldn't baby him. But then he realizes that he's reflexively grasped on to Klaus's shirt with the hand not still intertwined with one of Vanya's. The remains of his dignity wouldn't survive either of these being pointed out, which was surely what Klaus would do if he tried to assert his maturity. So he lets Allison talk, tolerates her empty, pitying reassurances. At least it gives him something other than the pain to focus on as Diego cleans his wounds.

Once that's over, his siblings wrap his torso in gauze and help him into the clean shirt. He expects them to leave, but they don't. Klaus pulls him forward as gently as possible until he's laying almost entirely on top of his brother. Diego immediately fills in the vacated space and, with one final pat to Five's head, Allison sprawls out across the foot of the bed. Vanya, Luther, and Ben settle down on the floor, their heads leaned against the mattress.

"We never speak of this again," Five grumbles. In his mind, he's already planning how he can come back from this, how he can push his limits and strain their patience until they forget how weak and fragile he must have seemed, passively letting them see his back when it was nothing but a mass of bruises and welts. "Tonight was a fluke and it might as well have not happened."

"I don’t think so," Ben argues. "We shouldn't be here just to train Vanya and stop the apocalypse when we can do more than that. We’re not scared, naive little kids anymore. We can be there for each other like we weren’t before. It’ll be like a second chance, for all of us. For our family.”

_ Well,  _ Five thinks,  _ I’ve certainly heard worse plans than a second chance. _


End file.
